


Comfort Walks Softly On Little Cat Feet

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Frumpkin Is Best Emotional Support Cat, M/M, Molly Goes A Bit Non-Verbal, Sleep Paralysis, Spoilers for Campaign 2 Episode 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 11:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14331612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Telling the truth could take a lot out of a person, especially when it was about your past, and double especially when you had to explain why your past was so, well, short. Still, Molly had gone to bed feeling pretty decent, all things considered. He should have known that bringing up those memories, or lack thereof, would have consequences though, might trigger some things.Molly woke up unable to move.





	Comfort Walks Softly On Little Cat Feet

**Author's Note:**

> All I know about sleep paralysis I learned from a Buzzfeed article, so apologies if I got anything wrong.

Telling the truth could take a lot out of a person, especially when it was about your past, and double especially when you had to explain why your past was so, well, _short_. Still, Molly had gone to bed feeling pretty decent, all things considered. He should have known that bringing up those memories, or lack thereof, would have consequences though, might trigger some things.

Molly woke up unable to move.

_Not again_. _Please, not now, not tonight._ He felt himself blink, felt his heart hammer against his ribs as he struggled to breathe past the panic. This… whatever this was, happened more often than not when he was stressed, but the familiarity of the episodes and the knowledge that it would only last a few minutes at most did not comfort him. How could it? He was trapped in his own body, and it felt just like the first time he had ever woken up, when he had been under the ground. Molly could even feel the dirt on his face, on his chest, weighing him down, making it hard to breathe.

_It’s not real._ Molly knew that logically. He was in his bed at The Leaky Tap. He had fallen asleep in bed. He had woken up in bed. He wasn’t covered in dirt. He was not in a grave in the woods. He wasn’t. He _wasn’t._

The whispering started then, hissing, sliding syllables that he had never been able to make sense of before. Now he could hear them. _Lucien…..Nonagon._ Names that weren’t his, names he had never wanted to know, repeated over and over, as if the shadows surrounding him were a chorus in a play, spouting tragedy.

_Please._ Molly tried to twitch a finger, a toe, his tail, anything at all, anything that might clue in the rest of his body that it could move, but nothing happened. The shadows above him started moving, darkness that his eyes could not penetrate. He hated this. It wasn’t real, none of it was real, but that didn’t stop him from feeling afraid. _Please, just—_

“Mrah?” The sound, sudden and louder than the whispers, was so unexpected that it took Molly a few seconds for him to recognize what it was. A cat meowing. It sounded real, but then the whispers sounded real too. “Mrah-eh-eh?” A meow like a question.

Molly felt fur brush against his hand, warm and soft, and then just like that he could move, could sit up in bed and gasp for air as Frumpkin jumped into his lap and stared at him. Molly wondered if Caleb was looking at him through Frumpkin’s eyes, and just how had the cat gotten into the room anyway? Frumpkin purred and butted his head against Molly’s chest.

In the next bed over, Fjord sneezed in his sleep.

Molly scooped Frumpkin up into his arms and quietly made his way out of the room. He wasn’t going to be sleeping anymore tonight anyway, and he needed to move, even though he felt shaky and unsteady on his feet. He was still breathing hard as he made his way down the stairs to the common room, which was blessedly empty, the fire in the hearth banked, the logs giving off a soft glow as Molly put Frumpkin down and pulled up a chair. As soon as Molly sat down, Frumpkin jumped into his lap, turned around once or twice, and then lay down and began to purr.

Molly reached down and pet Frumpkin, concentrating on the feeling of soft fur under his hand, the vibration of the creature’s purring. He felt his racing heart finally slow down, his breathing relax. No wonder Caleb always had Frumpkin with him, if petting the cat was so soothing. Molly could definitely see the appeal. He lost himself in the simple comfort of small things, the warmth of a fire, the warmth of a cat.

“Mollymauk?”

Molly flinched, his head whipping around to see Caleb standing at the foot of the stairs. He hadn’t heard Caleb’s footsteps, the man could be as quiet as Frumpkin when he wanted to be, or maybe Molly had just been too preoccupied by trying to think about nothing at all. He was aware that his heart was racing again, and only partially because he had just been startled. Jester had asked Molly if he found anyone in the Mighty Nein attractive. Thankfully she had not asked who. (Jester had also asked Yasha, and oh, that hungry look on Beau’s face as she had waited for Yasha to answer.)

“Ah. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Caleb’s hands twisted together. “I thought, maybe, you would like company.”

Molly went to speak, and then stopped. There was a word in his mouth, a word that weighed down his tongue and tasted like damp earth, his very first word. No other word could get past that obstruction, could get past the unspoken word. So instead he nodded, made a beckoning motion with one hand.

Caleb pulled up a chair next to Molly, so they were sitting side by side. Molly turned slightly so he could look at Caleb, and wasn’t at all surprised to see that Caleb wasn’t looking at him. Instead the wizard was looking at Frumpkin, who opened his eyes and made a _mmmrp_ sort of sound as Caleb began to pet him. Molly continued to pet Frumpkin as well, feeling warm little shocks every time his hand brushed Caleb’s.

“I thought you might end up having a bad night, so I sent Frumpkin to you. He is very comforting, ja?”

Molly nodded, listening to Caleb’s voice blend with Frumpkin’s purr.

Silence stretched between them, Molly looking at Caleb, Caleb looking at Frumpkin. The glow of the firelight only highlighted the red of Caleb’s hair, the orange of Frumpkin’s fur. Molly had the urge to reach out and run his hands through Caleb’s hair, to warm himself at the fire of it. He continued petting Frumpkin instead. He had observed that Caleb was more comfortable with touch if the wizard himself was the one initiating the contact, and Molly respected that.

“I am not used to being the one who speaks, between the two of us. I am not clever with words, like you are, Mollymauk Tealeaf. You named yourself for birds who are said to be the ghosts of sailors. You gave yourself the initials M.T. Empty. I cannot tell if that is humor or self-deprecation, and knowing you it could be either, or both. Would you like to know what I think?”

Molly nodded slowly, then stared in surprise as Caleb’s hand moved to cover his own. Molly looked up. Caleb was looking at him, straight at him, _seeing_ him, blue eyes nearly dark in the wavering light.

“You are not a ghost, Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you are not empty. You are loyal and kind, both to those that deserve kindness and those that maybe do not. You’re a little bit wicked, a little bit foolish, and you walk the fine line between brave and reckless in every situation you throw yourself into. There is compassion in your heart tempered with realism in equal measure. You are full of life, Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you are a good man.”

It was nothing that Molly hadn’t wanted to believe about himself, hadn’t been telling himself for the past two years that he was, but hearing it from someone else, someone who had known him for only a short while, dissolved the word in his mouth that he had not wanted to say (because it wasn’t true, that word, not anymore, hadn’t been true for a long time) and filled him with something bright and shining and warm that bubbled up out of him as laughter, which was much better than tears.

“Caleb Widogast, if I didn’t know any better, I would say you were flirting with me.” Molly smiled, kept his tone light, joking. Plausible deniability.

“Oh no,” Caleb said. “If I had been flirting with you, I would have also added that you are handsome and charming and that I have been wondering what it would be like to kiss you.”

Molly blinked. Caleb’s tone was an auditory version of a very good poker face, hard to read. “Caleb, was that a joke?”

Caleb smiled. It was a small smile, but it was there, flickering in the low firelight. “I am no good with jokes, Molly.” He gave Molly’s hand a little squeeze.

“So, to be clear—“

Caleb chuckled and reached up to cup Molly’s cheek, leaned close. “I did not think I would have to spell it out for you,” Caleb said softly, his lips just brushing Molly’s.

Molly closed the distance, their lips meeting, one hand reaching up to touch Caleb’s hair as he had been longing to do, and Caleb didn’t shy away from the contact. If anything, the wizard leaned in a little closer as Molly’s fingers slipped through the strands, which were softer than they appeared. Caleb smelled like ink and woodsmoke, the same way that Fjord always seemed to smell faintly of the sea.

Molly felt Caleb’s hand reach up so that the wizard could run his fingers through Molly’s own hair, fingertips scratching gently at the base of his horns. Molly all but melted into Caleb’s touch and heard himself make a small, needy little sound as the kiss deepened, as he let the smell and taste of Caleb, the feel of Caleb’s hand on him, chase away the last remnants of his strange, waking nightmare.

Caleb pulled back, eyes wide, lips swollen from kissing and quirked in the tiniest of smiles. Molly felt himself grinning, and yes, he indeed felt a little bit wicked, a little bit foolish, Caleb had nailed it with that particular observation.

“We should go back to bed, maybe,” Caleb said. “There is so much we need to do tomorrow.” Even though he said that, he didn’t move to get up, and neither did Molly. The hand in Molly’s hair kept moving gently.

Trust Caleb to be the practical one, though it wasn’t as if the wizard was wrong. It had been a long day, a long night, and now that Molly was relaxed and content down to his very bones, he could maybe admit he was tired.

“Do you think you might still need Frumpkin to sleep with?” Caleb asked. “I could continue to lend him to you.”

Frumpkin, in response to his name, meowed loudly and shoved his head under Molly’s other hand, demanding to be petted. Molly chuckled and obliged him. “As much as I appreciate the offer, sadly I must give him back to you. Fjord’s allergic, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep for the sneezing. He had already started before I left the room.”

“Ahh,” Caleb replied. “I remembered Fjord’s allergy, but I thought his discomfort would be a small price to pay for _your_ comfort. Well, there is an easy and obvious solution to that, yes? Nott is sleeping with the girls tonight, and my bed is large enough for two grown people and a cat, if you don’t mind sharing it with me.”

“I very much do not mind,” Molly replied, and smiled as Caleb leaned forward and kissed him again.

Frumpkin jumped off of Molly’s lap and headed up the stairs, leading the way, paws making no sound on the wood floor.

**Author's Note:**

> The way Frumpkin meows is based on a cat I used to live with, an orange cat who "talked" all the time, usually with long, drawn out "mraaaaaaah" sounds but also with strange, choppy sounding "mraaah-eh-eh-eh" noises which always sounded like a question of some sort.
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if you want to stop in and say hi!


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